|
NDS
ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat
- New Import, In Stock |
 |
 |
|
 |
NCS
Game Synopsis
«©NCS»
Nearly a year after Mist Walker shipped Blue Dragon
for the Japanese Xbox 360, producer Hironobu
Sakaguchi, designer Hideo Minaba and music composer
Hitoshi Sakimoto team up to release Archaic Sealed
Heat for the Nintendo DS. The game represents the
company's second release and ASH falls comfortably
into the tactical S-RPG genre.
At the outset of the game, Queen Aisya is conducting a ceremony in
her castle when a blazing dragon swoops in and
destroys her kingdom and all of her subjects. Things
are looking grim until she realizes that everyone's
been crisped by an ancient flame that turns people
into ash but they're able to be resurrected and
revived into their former selves. The warrior
Bullnequ (no typo) is the first one to be revived
who joins Aisya in her quest of retribution and
restoration.
Jan Code: 4902370516289
|
|
|
NCS
Game Notes
» Tap the touch screen after the game logo appears
and you may select "NEW GAME" or "LOAD GAME" while
airy music plays in the background with the
occasional trumpet barrage. Only two save slots are
available.
» Queen Aisha looks sort of like Yuna of Final
Fantasy X fame.
» At the outset of the game, Queen Aisya is holding
a ceremony in the castle when the grounds outside
rock. Everyone goes into full alert and the soldiers
rush outside. Aisya stands with her loyal Buruneku (aka
Bullnequ) commiserating before they rush outside and see a fiery
flying serpent laying waste to the land with blasts
of fire from its maw. It spies the Queen and rises
up into the air and then plunges down to strike at Aisya and Buruneku. The screen fades to black and
the next scene shows the castle destroyed as Aisya
and what little remains of her military force face
off against the deadly wyrm. After Buruneku and a
soldier strike two blows against it, the serpent
heals itself and then fires off a blast of fire that
drops the three warriors. In the next scene, Aisha
stands alone amidst a destroyed land as the serpent
flies away in the distance.
» The game starts with a short tutorial which
demonstrates the movement and battle system. After
moving Aisya a few paces to the west, she'll reach a
juncture where Buruneku is resurrected from his
ashes and
he joins Aisya's party and fights alongisde her.
» The game is played entirely with the stylus. The
face buttons and d-pad do nothing which is an
inconvenience.
» To move, tap on Aisya and a lighted grid appears
which shows her range of movement. The fighting
system is reminiscent of Phantasy Star's scheme - your party is shown on the
touch screen facing the player along with commands
available for each fighter when his/her turns comes
up. Choose the attack option (first one on the menu)
and the touch screen switches to a view of the
enemy while the top screen switches to a view of
your party head-on. To throw out the attack, poke at
the monster shown on the touch screen with the
stylus and the monster is dealt damage. Each attack
is accompanied by a short animation where the
fighter runs and slashes on the top screen. After
the first battle with the fireball, Aisya runs to
Buruneku and gives him a big old hug. After the
reunion and a little bit of explanation, three more
fireballs appear that must be dealt with while Aisya
makes her way to the top of the screen to retrieve a
target object. After destroying another fireball and
running towards the north, a magic user named Lobelia is
resurrected automatically and joins Aisya's party.
After defeating the three fireballs, a blue dragon
drops on top of the artifact and guards it. The blue
dragon isn't a tough fight but it does have a
variety of attacks and can heal itself during
battle. After defeating it, a few more of Aisya's
subjects are raised from the ashes and the chapter
ends soon afterwards. You'll be ranked with a letter
grade and your bonus items, "get ele," and bonus
experience earned during the chapter are tallied up.
You'll be prompted to save your progress before the
second chapter begins.
» ELE is the coin of the realm.
» Before the second chapter commences, a SUMMON menu
pops up where you'll be able to select new members
to add to your party. The choices are:
BATTLER
WHITE MAGE
BLACK MAGE
» You can add three new members to your party which
cost 225 ELE each.
» The order of battle is shown on the lower part of
the touch screen.
» Whenever one of your party members attacks an
enemy, all of your party members join in on the
battle regardless of how far away on the map they
are from the point of conflict. If they're far away,
they'll attack by way of projectile attacks instead
of the melee blows that would be ignited if he/she
were only 1 space away instead of quite a distance
away.
»
After the second mission, two new character types
which cost 1235 ELE each are available as follows:
ITEMER
STEALER
» As mentioned earlier, Mist Walker sacrifices
player convenience for the sake of making the game
stylus-controlled only. To look around a map, you'll
have to tap and drag on a portion of the map to move
it around to look for enemy units, treasure chests,
or NPCs to interact with. A user-friendly approach
would have been to allow players to use the d-pad to
scroll around the map. What's the point of
deactivating everything other than the stylus when
the controls are there anyway? It's a poor use of
the NDS interface for the sake of being stylus-oriented and singlemindedly so. Tapping and dragging
the map isn't overly inconvenient but we wanted the option of scrolling
around with the d-pad in conjunction with the
stylus.
|
|
This document is ©NCSX 2007. All rights
reserved. No reproduction in whole or in part of
this document may be made without express written
consent of National Console Support, Inc. |
|
 |
 |
|
|
